


The Reason Resides

by canadasuperhero



Category: Band of Brothers, The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Families of Choice, Gen, Minor Violence, Prompt Fill, it goes badly for us all, stop forcing me to title things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:00:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24363967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadasuperhero/pseuds/canadasuperhero
Summary: Eugene Roe comes into his inheritance on the last remaining vestiges of a town that lies under twelve feet of silt and broken promises.Note: Hey good news everyone, chapter four was missing anentire sectionwhich I just noticed so hopefully it now makes some sense.
Comments: 24
Kudos: 17
Collections: things that go bump: a ficathon for every kind of weirdness





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [thingsthatgobump](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/thingsthatgobump) collection. 



> — Or as I have been affectionately calling it, House Hunter Louisiana. 
> 
> I'm listening to a lot of Dead South and Shawn James while writing this so if you're in the mood, that's a good place to start.
> 
> I've honestly missed writing these two and I cannot thank my personal cheerleading squad of Alex, Shannon, Kay, and Camden enough as I basically bombard them with random chunks and ask them to make sense of my mess.
> 
> Sorry to answer a prompt with a wip; it, uh, it got away from me. Hover over the italic French for an in-text translation.

The engine cut; Eugene leaning forward silently, back curving until his forearms braced against the wheel and his hands dangled, fingers brushing the dashboard. He’d pulled his old Chevy as far as he could off the rutted track and into the soggy, overgrown clearing that might have once been a dirt driveway but he wasn’t willing to push his luck much further. Another five minutes’ walk ahead the drooping, moss-dipped oaks opened up a bit more and he could make out the house nestled against the back of the clearing where the trees started to dip into water and weeds once more. It seemed impossibly sturdy under the mid-morning haze that even Eugene felt wilted under.

“Is that a cellar door? That basement is flooded or you can eat my hat.”

“You can eat your own hat, Merl-Francis,” Gene’s voice was probably the driest thing for miles around. Still, his lips quirked as he side-eyed his passenger. Merriell “Snafu” Shelton had his dirty sneakers up on Eugene’s dash — had done since they’d left Baton Rouge an hour ago. His face was scrunched up in put-upon disgust and the cigarette smoke that had been blowing out the window the whole trip was now settling around him, weighing into his slick curls. 

Gene shook his head and reached across the space between them to pluck the cigarette from him, setting it against his own lips. He inhaled deeply over the sound of Merriell’s squawking. “I ain’t taking that bet anyway. Who builds a cellar up against a bayou?”

“Your great grand-daddy, looks like.” Meriell scowled at him but didn’t try to take the smoke back, just slumped further down against the vinyl of the bench seat.

Gene hummed an affirmative before lapsing back into silence. Around them the chirping, syrupy summer sounds of morning slowly rise to fill the void, interrupted only by the occasional ticking of the engine working to cool itself as best it can.

His eyes pulled back to the house. They’d had to cross to Butte la Rose and beg a ride down the little branching offshoot of the Atchafalaya River to Bayou Chene before they could roll the truck onto semi-permanent ground and work their way back up to the marshy ‘farm’ his grandfather had left him. What Gene could make out of the house was two stories of sprawling verandas that started part-way along the house and stretched behind it. Grey boards, weathered by moisture and years without repair, made up the siding with only the occasional scrap of paint to hint at the original colour. Like Merl-Francis had noted, it sat flat to the ground, no stilts to hoist it out of the unpredictable waters like many of the remaining homes this deep into the basin did. Still, the roof was unbowed, arches of the verandas standing proud as if it had been built 50 years ago on solid earth and not 150 years ago, one of the last remaining vestiges of a town that lay under twelve feet of silt.

Merriell’s cigarette burnt low and then nipped at his fingers; Eugene hissed, coming to life. He dropped the damned thing in the shitty plastic tray and sucked at his fingers.

“What the fuck you think would happen, jus’ staring and wasting a good cigarette like that, Gene-Baptiste?”

“Lord knows I shouldn’t have expected you to say something.”

The other man stopped sniggering, rolling his head across the sticky, creaky vinyl to frown at Gene before turning back towards the house. His arms drew up and in until they dangled between his up-raised knees and Gene was hit with the memory of a skinny 18 year old sitting across from him at the army recruitment centre exactly like that. His bag tossed under his seat, ready to go right that moment, and mean little smirk keeping anyone away from their corner. Merl-Francis had sat with him a full three hours as Gene’s knees had bounced and his hands had clutched and smoothed the brochures in his lap before he’d even spoken to him. He’d spent another two hours berating Gene’s life choices and in the end they’d both gotten up to leave. When Gene had eyed his bag disbelievingly, Merriell had grinned and slung it over his shoulder so that the Marine Corps tag was visible. 

The little shit never did explain why he’d been in that office with him but it had cemented a relationship that Eugene had never been able to explain to anyone else, through Merriell Shelton’s service and out the other side to here, sitting in a rapidly uncomfortable Chevy on a track so rutted Gene wasn’t sure he was getting the truck back out again.

“Wasn’t thinking about your fingers, was I? Too busy staring at your stupid inheritance.”

“Our stupid inheritance.” Gene mumbled around his fingers. 

“Ain’t no one giving me a house.” But Merriell was already dropping his feet back into the footwell, body rocking forward with the motion. He heaved the door open.

Gene frowned. “What —”

“I’m going in, Gene-Baptiste, what the fuck else?” Merriell’s feet squelched in the mud. He scowled fiercely, slamming the door closed with a dull metallic clunk, though he’d left the window open so he could lean in and fish his bag out. “Sitting out here like two idiots when there’s a perfectly run-down house right there to get bit in.”

Things were slammed around behind him for a few minutes before Merriell reappeared in the window to lob his own bag at him; Gene managed to half raise his right shoulder to deflect it while his left arm flailed about uselessly, trying and failing to catch at the heavy cotton weave before it hit his face. 

Merriell’s scowl deepened although his tone was worried despite the gruffness. “Move, you _ couyon!” _

“Right, right.”

Between the two of them, they got the contents of his truck bed across the rutted field and piled on the veranda. The lawyer who’d been dealing with everything had said the place had been wired for power and there was supposedly an old generator somewhere but neither Merriell or himself put much stock in it working if it was still around. They’d packed along some extra gas anyway but with it they’d brought plenty of batteries and some lanterns that Merriell dryly insisted fell off a Marine Corps boat — or possibly a couple of them judging by the assortment. 

The old fella too, who had brought them down and would pick them back up in a weeks' time, had insisted they buy a block of ice in Butte la Rose before he’d let them on the barge. He’d claimed they’d appreciate it if there were an icebox still languishing in the kitchen and Eugene granted it was probably good sense to bring it anyway. Even if they ended up hacking it apart to use in the coolers, Eugene would prefer to stretch their perishables as far as they could go before they resorted to straight rice and rehydrated potatoes.

When they swung that last heavy cooler onto the porch, the whole thing groaned and crackled like it might buckle beneath them, but it felt steady under his feet. He exchanged raised eyebrows with Merriell before his friend reached forward from his spot on the steps to rock one of the grey pillars. It stood solid although Eugene’s heart didn’t.

“Merl-Francis, the next time you go shaking old houses you can do it with your own head under the eaves!”

“Got more sense than that.” 

“Your lips to God’s ear,” Gene retorted dryly. He used the time it took to search his bag for the envelope containing the copies of the deeds and the keys to get his heartbeat back under control. When he pulled them out and carefully picked his way through the baggage towards the door, Merriell whistled.

“Look at those things.” 

The keys were hefty. They were obviously nickel-plated though they’d darkened with age and it was clear that most of the plating had worn away with use, rubbed dull where Gene’s thumb pressed into the long barrels. The lock looked solid too; when he slid the keys in, turning both at once as he’d been instructed, there was a firm, satisfying click. Something this well-constructed was expensive. Eugene didn’t much know his daddy’s side of the family, only that they all — like his mother’s — had lived in the Atchafalaya Basin since they’d settled here. Money to build and maintain a house like this, to transport everything to build it? That wasn’t something people had had. 

Then again, a law firm holding a will written in 1930 until “a male heir attained the age of 25” wasn’t something that made much sense either. At least it explained why it hadn’t gone to his daddy first.

Eugene shook his head, clearing those thoughts out. He turned the knob and pushed the door open and it was only when it swung wide with nothing but a small, dark entrance to greet them that Eugene realized he’d been holding his breath. 

A bag slung past his hip to land on the old, discoloured tile floor and Eugene startled. Merriell shook his head at him and shoved another past him. “I don’t know where your brain is at, Gene-Baptiste, but you’d best start helping me or I’m gonna take your house and leave you for the gators.”

“I’m not your Marine friends, Merriell, you can’t scare me with alligators.”

“Oh sorry, all this tortured staring; confused you for another Eugene.”

“Jesus christ, Merriell.”

Merriell scowled and shoved a bag directly into Eugene’s chest before shimmying past him and into the house, stepping over the bags in the tiny vestibule to be swallowed by the gloom of the rest of the house. His voice drifted back. “I’ll kindly thank you to fuck off with your opinions.”

“You’ve never kindly thanked me for anything in your life!” Gene called back, leaning forward before rocking back again. He clutched the oversized duffle to his chest and took a deep breath. This was ridiculous; he was the one who’d dragged Merriell out of Baton Rouge to come here and he’d spent every second on this property pulling away from it. He’d thought this would be perfect — give Merriell a quiet place to work himself to exhaustion instead of drinking his way to the next brawl while Eugene got things sorted with his much-delayed thesis defense. Hurricane Barry had thrown everything in Louisiana behind and Gene had been left working regular nursing duties at irregular, grueling hours while his practorialship had languished. He needed the space as much as Merriell did.

Now here he was, taking time to sort himself out and he had baulked at every step since he’d laid eyes on the old house. Merriell was right; whatever this feeling was, he’d best get over himself.

Gene took another deep breath and stepped inside.

After the light outside, the hallway was dim and warm, the air settling heavy against his shoulders and in his chest — no windows here to let the air flow, just three firmly closed doorways. Surprisingly, the grey wood of the exterior hadn’t touched anything in this small, empty hall. The floors and sideboard lightened only to a soft, natural oak where the wax had been lifted from lifetimes of constant scuffling.

Gene, still clutching his bag to his chest with one arm, shuffled forward, his other hand drifting out to run over the wood chair rail. There wasn’t any furniture in this space; just enough room, he guessed, to stand in the middle with his arms out and not touch the walls before the hallways narrowed at the back wall with a solid staircase that turned its way upstairs where Merriell must be.To the right was a set of double doors that looked like they folded back to open the space up. As he made to pass the second doorway on the left — thinking to follow Merriell upstairs — he paused, pressing his hand flat. The wood was cool under his touch and Eugene found himself reaching down, the door swinging open with a quiet click.

Gene stared in amazement; the kitchen was a few steps down, sunken into the earth and set with stone that climbed the walls and stood sturdy against the weight of the beams that carried up and across the roof. Dangling from each wooden brace were bundles of dried herbs that looked too fragile to be any good. A fireplace made of the same stone as the floors dominated the corner directly across from the door; nestled in it was a large cast iron pot that hung from a swinging iron arm. The oak mantle was thick and worn, polished to smoothness in places by hand and use, not wax.

Nothing in the kitchen was polished in the same way as the entry hall had been; it felt homey, welcoming and cool although Gene supposed with both a wood burning oven and the fireplace going it would quickly warm. He leaned in a little further, noted the white screen door set against an exterior door that was thick and plain; it was obviously meant to be left open to let air flow as best it could through the screen. There was a bit of dust and the windows set high above the sink were covered in swirls of whitewash but otherwise everything in the room — and there was actual furniture in here, sturdy oak like the mantle — left Gene with the feeling that he could just step down and settle in to work.

He shook his head. One less thing to worry about and it wasn’t like kitchen work was something that would keep Merriell busy.

As if summoned, Merriell clattered down the stairway behind him, scoffing loudly and pointedly to see Gene hovering in yet another doorway. “Four rooms upstairs and not enough room between ‘em to swing a cat. Or a baby. Or even a fair-sized rat.”

“I got the point, thanks.”

“Welcome. The rooms are okay though and they all got those fancy french doors leading outside. Limed up good and caulked from the looks of it but it musta worked to save the rooms since the inside doors all open nice and smooth.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing up there, Merl-Francis? Swinging rats and doors about?”

“Men in glass doorways shouldn’t throw stones, Gene.”

Gene laughed and he felt himself relax. “Fuck you.”

“Naw, ain’t into scrawny bastards.” Merriell shoved him lightly against the doorframe, ducking at Gene’s half-hearted swing. He jogged back outside, kicking a bag further into the house as he went. “You deal with the baggage, I’m done with housework. I’s gonna find that piece of shit generator we were promised and see if I can’t blow some lights.”

He was gone long before Gene could get a retort out so he pushed himself off the doorframe and got to unpacking. In this case, it mostly meant throwing their personal bags into the largest of the rooms upstairs and then shoving their tools into the little corner of the entryway where the stairs rose up. The kitchen did have an icebox, an old wood and iron thing that probably cost a fortune then and definitely cost a fortune now. Eugene scrubbed it out with vinegar and baking soda before he pulled Merriell away from the generator to help him shove the ice block into the top compartment. In turn, Merriell pulled him outside through the kitchen door so that he could help him sort out the fuel pump on the generator where the rubber tubing had rotted away. 

The veranda apparently wrapped fully around the back of the house and the generator sat against the railing, thick cables held taut between the floorboards as they snaked into a mudded hole in the wall where the staircase probably sits. Right across from the kitchen door, attached to the veranda itself, was a dock which must have made for easy deliveries. The dock itself slowly sat low, meandered its way deep into the waterway at the back of the property, posts dug into mud and occasionally replaced entirely with water-logged oaks. Probably ended where the water was deepest but boats would be able to pull up almost all the way to the house when the basin filled, judging by the mud and weeds. He’d suspect that Merriell was right and that the cellar flooded something awful but the kitchen was dug in and down too and it had been as dry as the rest of the house so who knew. This whole property was a mix of contradictions and impossibilities.

Impossibilities like the generator. They’d had to use generators more than a few times at the clinic and the military had shoe-horned them into random aid stations for months as the state got back on its feet; they’d been loud and fussy. When Merriell slammed the top of theirs, it gave a few startled sounding clunks before starting up, smooth and quiet in a way that Gene was pretty sure gas generators just weren’t meant to be.

Gene slid his eyes over to Merriell who was scowling but refused to meet Gene’s eyes. “If you use this weirdness as an excuse to sleep in the truck, I’m gonna drive you straight into the bayou. We’ll store the gas by the kitchen door.”

_ “Yes suh, je fais le mieux que je peux, suh._” Gene mocked, deepening his accent to an almost unbelievable degree. He was quick to raise his hands in surrender as Merriell growled at him. “Sorry. You want to go see if we’re going to burn the house down?”

They didn’t; the toggle by the kitchen door made a satisfying ‘click’ and the lights flickered and brightened before settling into a hum. By the time they’d settled down for the night every lightswitch they tried — bar the lone bathroom upstairs which didn’t have any wiring in it — had hummed easily to life with soft yellow light. Good sense meant that regardless of the lack of raging house fires they still shut the generator off long before dark and ate a meal of jerky by the light of Merriell’s ill-gotten lanterns while they sorted out sleeping bags. 

It wasn’t comfortable by any means, but it wasn’t terrible either. The caulking at the windows and doors as well as the heavy lime-wash made the bayou seem distant, but the muted sound and utter darkness was nothing like the city either. It took Gene a long time to fall asleep.

“A patient comes to you with a fever, sore throat, how do you treat them?”

“Tell them to take some acetaminophen, alternate with ibuprofen; check in if they don’t see an improvement in three days.”

“Non.” His thesis supervisor shook her head and set a steaming tea cup down beside him with a delicate clink. “You know better, Roe. Think harder.”

“I….” Gene reached out, sorting through a mess of herbs and flowers, rubbing against the soft head of a lavender stalk, the flowers crumbling under his fingers. The bright notes of the lavender burst over the green earthy scent that laid heavy in his kitchen. He pressed down against the rustic oak tabletop, trying to ground himself and then was moving again, his hands tugging gently at stalks and seedpods without his consent. “Elderberry for fever, red bay leaf for inflammation, valerian and chamomile for sleep.”

“Bon.” Her voice was thick with approval. “And for pain, Roe?”

“We lay hands.” Gene felt like he was floating.

“ _ Un petit peu._ ” A hand laid heavy in his hair, carding it back from his forehead before it settled, cradling the base of his skull. “ _ Vous-autres s'appuyer trop sur cela parfois. Il existe d'autres moyens.”_

“Grandmere said —”

“Sometimes, boy, god don’t answer. When that happens, you’ll come to me.” Another hand, pressing to his forehead, tilting his head back, back until the line of his throat was straight, held taut. “What do you do for pain, Gene-Baptiste?”

Gene closed his eyes, dizzy. “Give them  _ god damned _ medicine.”

Laughter. “You were meant to be here, _ mon ‘tit chien.” _

The hands released him suddenly and without their support he collapsed in on himself. A scream caught in his throat, swallowed by the heat and the darkness that swirled behind his eyelids. There was no table, no chair, no floor.

He fell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couyon - idiot  
> Un petit peu - A little bit/sort of  
> Vous-autres s'appuyer trop sur cela parfois. Il existe d'autres moyens - Ya'll rely too much on that sometimes. There are other ways.
> 
> French mistakes are a matter between me, google, and the University of Louisiana.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again hover for in-text translations that are cobbled together from 10th grade Quebecois, Google, and LSU's Cajun dictionary. Translations at the end for mobile.

“You tossed and turned all night, homme.”

“She weren’t Cajun,” He mumbled in response, swayingly upright by virtue of his grip twisted into the shoulder of Merriell’s plaid shirt. His face was scrunched up, lips pursed, brows knotted so tightly together his eyes were slivers in the folds of his skin.

“What?” Merriell sounded as confused as Gene did himself.

“M’fressor. Wasn’t Cajun.”

“ _This_ what keep you up at night?” Merriell led him down the stairs, unbothered that Gene retained his hold; it was habit now. Gene was a poor morning person and Merriell had decided months ago he’d rather Gene follow him around the apartment like a toddler on apron strings then walking into doors. Well, he’d decided after letting it happen a few times anyway; Gene had been as unbothered by the initial incidents as Merriell was about current circumstances which had probably contributed to the change. Apparently it wasn’t as fun watching your friend trip over a bathtub lip when they kept doing it and didn’t seem to mind.

“ _Non, mauvaise herbe._ ”

“Weeds kept you up at night.”

“Oui.”

“You know that don’t make a lick of sense, right?” Merriell steered towards the kitchen and then there was a pause and a sharp turn towards the veranda where he was leaned up against the banister. 

Gene hummed, turning his face up into the morning sun. It wasn’t long before the other man returned with two cups of coffee and they enjoyed it together as the early morning heat rolled in around them. It had never gotten cool, mid-summer as it was, but they and the bugs enjoyed a few peaceful minutes of coexistence before Gene started laughing. “Did you think better about taking me to the kitchen, Merl-Francis?”

“Forgot about those fucking stairs. No banister; woulda killed us both and no one to find us.”

“She’d never let that happen so soon.”

“Who, your fucking professor?”

“Y-no.” Gene slumped forward against the railing; for a moment his mind whirled and his stomach dropped like he was about to fall. The railing pressed against his belly, firm and steady, until he found his feet again. “Nevermind her, brain still ain’t firing. She wouldn’t touch this ‘bayou heap’ for God or money. I should know, she firmly advised me against doing so myself. Reminded me my family had ‘made good’ long ago.”

“What a bitch.” Merriell sounded admiring.

“She’s old school; still wears the white nylons and coat-dress.” He sipped his coffee. “Wouldn’t have liked me speaking French either.”

“You ever introduce her to your memaw?”

“Never the twain were meant to meet. Thank God. Grandmere would have laid hands alright.”

“Old lady fight, nice.”

Gene shoved at his friend, careful not to spill their coffees. “The dead would rise to slap you upside the head, Merriell Shelton. Nevermind this anyway. It was a stupid dream; I’m wide awake now and able to navigate stairs and small appliances all on my own. Lets go have breakfast.”

After they ate, they both settled down to work opening up the house. Like Merriell had said, when his ancestors had left the property they had caulked all the french doors and windows that lined the verandas with clay and lime. Nearly a hundred years had seen the mixture dried and crumbling, even in this climate. It was the work of nearly a full day to see them all cleared, washed down and the dust swept up into buckets. Gene had a thought to fold it into a garden later.

Both of them were covered in a fine layer of dust that had quickly turned to mud as the day progressed and the humidity around them pressed into their skin. By the time they were done their arms and faces were caked in clay where rivets of sweat hadn’t left salt lines in their wake. Eugene eyed the sink but Merriell flatly — and rightly — stated that he wasn’t about to start fixing any issues with a hundred year old well in the dark. Instead, they washed up outside the kitchen using the water from one of the jugs they’d brought and hung their shared towel over the railing to dry.

Gene’s back ached but it had felt good to do something so mindless and Merriell looked a little less like his muscles were about to twist themselves straight out of his skin with tension.

Shoulders loose for the first time in months, Merriell scrubbed the back of his neck dry with his inside-out shirt as they clattered into the kitchen. “Was going to check the roof tomorrow but we’ll do the well and the pipes instead. At least we can use it for bathing even if it’s no good to drink.”

“I didn’t really think far enough ahead to buy a filter.” Gene shook his head, pulling out fixings for dinner. “Honestly, I was expecting more rotted wood and less functional manor house.”

“Weren’t we all. Sledge coulda been raised here.”

Gene said nothing for a moment, setting the rice to boil. When he did speak it was with an even tone, his back turned. “You think? Doctor’s boy like that would surely have an opinion on my yellow tiles.”

“No one has an opinion on your fucking yellowed tiles, Gene.” The crack of a beer can opening swiftly followed by another. “Sledge wouldn’t give a fuck about the tiles. Jesus, what is it with you and the tiles.”

“I haven’t even mentioned the tiles before now, Merl-Francis, I don’t have a thing with the tiles.” Gene answered carefully. A beer hovered over his shoulder and he took it, sipped. “You should invite him anyway, prove me wrong. Give me another labourer out of it.”

All that tension was back like a snap, Gene could feel it radiating behind him. He cursed and turned. It was best to face Merriell’s sharp edges head-on now that the jig was up. He leaned his hip back against the counter and took another sip of his beer, eyeing his friend carefully. Merriell’s mouth was all twisted up and his eyes were small and mean-looking as he stared at Eugene. The grey powdered shirt was damn-near torn between his fists.

“You think you’re clever, Roe? Hmm, smarter than ol’ Snafu, know what’s good for me?”

“Jesus Christ, no.” Gene stayed propped against the counter, kept the hand not holding his beer loose at his side. “I just want you to be happy.”

“I am fucking happy!”

“You were picking a fight nine times out of ten, Merriell. I was cleaning more blood out of my kitchen sink then I was seeing at the emergency clinic!”

“The city is full of _drigaille! J'ai donné ce qu'il fallait!_ ”

“What does that even mean, you gave what was needed?”

“ _Peu importe ce que je veux dire, tu gardes ton nez hors de mes affaires._ ” Merriell snarled at him but he hadn’t unwound his hands from the shirt. He was vibrating in place, muscles damned near twitching out of his skin but he didn’t make a move towards Eugene despite the tone and the tension building in the kitchen.

He hadn’t really ever worried that he would. Eugene had never felt unsafe with Merriell. Frustrated, yes, but never unsafe.

“That’s rich coming from the man who paid into my student loans. Lived in my apartment between deployments, met my grandmere, cooked me food. Your nose is so far in my business, it could do my taxes.”

Merriell’s right foot turned, slid back.

“You can run once I’ve said my piece.” Gene’s beer was already on the countertop, foaming from the force. He leant forward, arm crossing the space between them to grab Merriell’s shirt between the other man’s fists. “You came back to me this last time sad and angry, Merriell Shelton. You talked about Sledge like he made you happy; I _want_ you to be happy. You don’t have to call him. We don’t even have to talk about this again. I just want you to think about it.”

Gene let the shirt go, leaning back again. “I’ll bring you out a plate when it’s done.”

Merriell didn’t nod, just turned and left Gene with the rice and a mess of beer to clean up.

“How do you fix a broken man, Gene-Baptiste?”

“He isn’t broken!”

Green smells and tea and his kitchen table. Gene pushed away, arms braced against it, shaking with the effort to _not be here_.

“That isn’t what I asked you. Precision in care, my boy.” Dr Marran’s kind voice preceded his hands on Gene’s shoulders. They squeezed slightly before sliding down his arms to rest with palms cradling the backs of Gene’s hands. Gene had pressed against a wall once, when he was small, for minutes on end and when he’d pulled back his arms had floated up without him. That was what it was like as slowly their hands turned until their palms faced up; like his hands belonged to someone else.

Gene hissed out a curse in frustration.

“Shh, shh. My poor boy.” Pressure as a cheek pressed to the crown of his head. He felt his hair move with every syllable. “How do you fix a broken man?”

“You stop putting him at a table full of shit and let him sleep!”

“Don’t sass, my bright young man. You’ve a lot to learn and I’m only so patient.” The pressure against his head shifted and Gene squeezed his eyes shut as lips pressed into his hair. It felt like it was supposed to be comforting; it felt like a threat.

Gene took a deep breath and opened his eyes again. “I don’t know. This isn’t what I know!”

“Mm. Listen carefully.“ His body was moving like a puppet then, shifting back and forth as the hands moved his own along the table, digging into the plants and pulling out things that hadn’t been there before. “A black wick, a bundle of lavender. Know what you want to fix and press them into the wax. You’ll use your own blood to seal the deal, if you know what’s good for you. Only a bit, mind, but I’ll have no witch of mine making deals they don’t know. Wrap it with a yellow ribbon and have them burn a strand of their hair every night.”

In his hands was a candle; thin and white and smelling not at all like lavender. Where his index finger slipped against the wax, a smudge of blood was left and then gone again. Gene shuddered.

The voice was proud. “You’ll be so great, my boy.”

His strings were cut, his knees gave out and the black took him.

Merriell wasn’t in the room when he woke in the morning, his sleeping bag crumpled haphazardly into the corner and the door wide open.

Eugene lay there for long moments, staring at the ceiling through crusted eyelashes, lips pursed. The light that managed to strain through the mudded windows was watery but it danced across the plaster above him in wavering splashes where one of them had left scrapes in the whitewash yesterday. Around him the house was silent but if he strained he could hear the slamming of the truck doors through the whistling of dog-day cicadas. So, gone but not left.

With that assurance, he managed to roll himself over onto hands and knees with a groan as his back twinged. Getting fully to his feet was a production; between his sleeping bag and a single sock clinging to his toes he almost brained himself against the open doorway. When he did manage to shamble his way out of the room, he eyed the stairway with a squinting distrust.

He was still standing there when Merreill appeared in front of him, scowling. Gene grunted in startlement and reared back, would have lost his footing if not for Merriell’s hand already fisted in his t-shirt. “Me’ll—”

“Shut up. You ain’t talking to me this morning.”

Gene contemplated that as he let Merriell lead him down the stairs. When they’d reached the bottom and Merriell had released him, he scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to rub some of the ache and tiredness away. “C’n I talk to you after t’morn’n?”

“Jesus Christ, Gene.” Merriell still sounded angry and Gene found himself making a sad sound which just made Merriell look even angrier. “Go get your fucking coffee.”

The whole entrance shuddered with the force of the front door slamming. Gene closed his eyes, turning his head into the cool support of the kitchen door before pushing it open. The few steps down took enough concentration to navigate that he’d managed that and brewing a fresh pot of coffee before he noticed how quiet the kitchen was. His grip on his mug tightened so hard his hands shook, his cheek twitching with the effort to unclench his jaw. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the bayou through the screen door but the cicadas that had been so loud when he woke made no noise. There was no water lapping, no distant splashes, no whistles or warbles or breeze. Just stillness around him like time had stopped outside this burrowed space.

Gene stood there, rigid, the heat from his body slowly drawn down through his bare feet and dispersed through the stone floor until his only point of warmth was the prickle of heat against his fingertips. He stared down at his mug, watched his coffee ripple and splash onto his white-knuckled fingers. Dread rose, swallowing his anxiety, and he waited for the hands that would surely come next.

They didn’t. The coffee cooled between his hands, the kitchen warmed as the heat outside picked up and Gene finally felt himself start to shiver. He cracked his mug down onto the counter, hitting it at an odd angle and splashing coffee all over as he slid his hands to the edge, griping just in time as his knees unlocked and nearly buckled under him.

Adrenaline crash, he noted distantly. Probably exacerbated by low blood sugar and existing fatigue. Somatic symptoms and lasting physical residue would indicate he wasn’t dreaming. Which meant that he was awake, he was in his kitchen, and this was really happening.

Gene closed his eyes again and he found himself swallowing convulsively as he pushed himself upright. Slowly he turned, shoulders twisting up until only one arm and his hip braced him against the countertop echoing his posture from last night. It took him a moment to force himself to open his eyes again; momentary starbursts swam across his vision and then it steadied.

In the centre of his table, surrounded by Merriell’s breakfast dishes was a simple, white, pillar of a candle with a rough yellow string knotted low around it’s girth. The strands of cotton cut slightly into it near the knot as if it had been tied on while it had still been warm and malleable. The candle itself still looked soft, as if the very heat of the bayou around them could set it to the table, affixed to this house like the stone under him. Gene licked his lips, eyes flitting towards the screen door but there was still no sound and no movement. The world was still holding its breath, waiting for him.

He reached out.

A slow blink; the world lurched around him and Gene was in front of the table, the candle cradled in his palms. Sound rushed in to fill the void like the waters of the Mississippi flooding the basin. He almost dropped the candle to cover his ears; it had been so silent for so long that the whistling of the cicadas was like shells dropping in around him. His fingers spasmed and then tightened, nails sinking into the wax, one catching on the cotton and tearing at the quick.

“Jesus Christ.” He breathed.

As the world slowly settled back down to the soft, weighted cacophony of life, Gene brushed his thumb against the candle, wiping away the bead of blood that had welled into the shallow crescent left by his finger and stained the yellow knot. The candle was juggled to one hand so that Gene could lift the other to his mouth and gnaw the hangnail back. He worried it and the little sliver of skin between his teeth for a moment. He almost spat it to the floor absently but caught himself in time to pull a disgusted expression. A habit of Merriell's, that, and not one he wanted to start in the midst of whatever the fuck else he was doing while he lost his damn mind. Instead, he shuffled across the floor and spat it into the ashes of the fireplace. He left the candle on the mantel with a thump, turned, and left the kitchen.

When Merriell came back from the well, truck rumbling to a stop closer to the house than Gene would have ever pushed it, Gene was hunched on the front steps still in his worn night clothes, cigarette smoke hanging thick around him without a breeze to fight against the cloying effect of the humidity.

Merriell slammed the truck door and walked past him into the house without a word. A few moments and then he was back, standing behind Gene, closer than anyone would consider polite or comfortable. "What the fuck, Gene."

Eugene hummed a query. He'd been out here, alternating between smoking and gnawing on the lifted skin of his finger, since he'd left the kitchen.

"Gene." There was a tone under Merriell's usual laconic anger that Gene didn't have the energy to parse right this moment.

He sighed. "Must be lunch then, Merriell Shelton? Since you talking to me and all."

"'Must be lunch'," Merriell hissed back. "What the fuck! There's coffee all over the floor, dishes on the table. You're still wearing those stupid fucking matching pajamas! 'Must be lunch'! What is up your craw, Eugene?"

Gene took a deep breath, tilting his head up and back; not far enough to see his friend but enough so that the smoke wreathed his face. "Sorry, got a bit turned around in the waking, I'll clean it up. Go on back in; I'll be along."

The silence thrummed thick behind him. Gene stubbed out the cigarette into the dirt then started another. Just as he heard Merriell reach the door, he raised his voice. "And don't touch the candle, Merl-Francis. It ain't for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Non, mauvaise herbe - No, weeds.
> 
> The city is full of drigaille! J'ai donné ce qu'il fallait! - trashy people! I gave what was needed!
> 
> Peu importe ce que je veux dire, tu gardes ton nez hors de mes affaires. - It don’t matter what I mean, you keep your nose out of my business.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No French this chapter, just two stupid boys arguing in a kitchen.

Only half the cigarette was gone — and of that only a quarter actually inhaled — before Gene felt steady. He carefully stubbed the smoke against the porch step at his hip, slipping the remainder behind his ear before he stood and brushed dirt and paint chips from his ratty cotton pants. The wood was warm under his bare feet, rough. Flexing his toes, he felt the wood grain and heard the crackle as the paint chipped and crackled with the movement and the imperfections of it comforted him. A little bit of reality in a surreal morning.

When he’d worked up the will to finally enter he found himself leaning against the kitchen entry, arms crossed over his stomach and watching as Merriell worked. His friend was scrapping old food into the garbage and tossing the plates haphazardly onto the counter afterward, the occasional fork bouncing into the sink with a clatter. A tea towel had been tossed onto the floor where coffee was still dripping slowly down the cabinets and another was draped over Merriell’s thin shoulders.

With Merriell there it seemed like just a kitchen again, warm from the wood stove and filled with sounds that drifted through the screen door. 

“I said I’d clean.”

“Well, I ain’t on my knees.” A plate landed halfway on another and rang alarmingly. 

“I see that. Sorry.”

“Fo’ what?”

Gene took a moment to think. “I’m not sorry I brought up Sledge. I’m sorry I tried to slip it under the radar. And I’m sorry I… well.”

He pulled his right hand from his waist to gesture sharply at the wrist around them though Merriell hadn’t turned to see it. “Sorry I took this out on you.”

“I don’t even fucking know what ‘this’ is, Gene.”

“Honestly, I don’t either.” Gene straightened then, shaking out his shoulders and descended into the kitchen. He nudged Merriell back away from the counter so that he could fit himself in beside him and started mopping at the cabinets. Neither of them looked at the other but Merriell’s leg pressed solidly to his shoulder as they worked. “I’ve been having dreams. About healing people.”

“You’re a nurse, that ain’t so strange.”

“Not like that. Not laying hands, either.” Gene hunched his shoulders, his hand tightening on the damp towel. “I know how to do that. This is different, it feels different.”

“Look, Gene, you want to talk about this then you’re going to have to give me something here. I don’t know shit about laying hands or penicillin besides that there’s never enough and you use one when you’re pissing needles and the other when you got bleeding.” Merriell’s hand fitted into his hair and tugged a little but otherwise didn’t look at him. 

“You use a fucking bandage when you’re bleeding, Merl-Francis.” Gene leaned into the touch; Merriell’s hand in his hair felt good, steadying, even when he tugged in recrimination. “It gave me a candle.”

“What?” Merriell sounded like Gene had pulled the rug out from under him.

“The candle on the fireplace. I dreamt it. Wax and lavender and blood and there it was on the table this morning, sitting between your disgusting powdered eggs.”

Merriell tsked and Gene just knew he was thinking back over his morning and trying to place if the candle had been there. When the silence began to drag on, Gene knew he couldn’t remember it. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead hard into the cabinet door and choked on his own laughter. Merriell tightened his grip again at the crown of his head, helplessly.

After a moment he spoke. “It doesn’t smell like no lavender.”

“The magic candle can smell like whatever it wants, that doesn’t change that it’s a magic candle!”

“Shh, alright, Jesus, calm down.” Merriell lowered his hand and slapped Gene between his hunched shoulders. “You’re such a bitch.”

Eventually Gene got to his feet and poured water into a pan to boil while Merriell contributed by kicking the now-sodden towel across the floor towards the backdoor to be taken out later. When Gene set to washing the morning dishes, Merriell’d slumped on the oak bench, legs akimbo, and picked the raisins out of a bag of trail mix to eat slow and with a particular sort of smacking noise while he stared, sunken, dark-ringed eyes bugged wide. Gene knew the whole production was designed solely to force others into distance and let Merriell study them squirming. Although between them it was probably more habit and irritation then any actual effort to set Gene on edge.

“So what’s the candle for?” Came the drawl around a particular wet smack.

Gene nearly cracked his mug against the sink but he kept his calm. “What was that?”

“I asked what the magic candle does.” 

He titled his head back, hands still in the warm water and stared at the wall. “It’s for healing, Merl-Francis, what else would it be for.”  
“So you won’t mind none if I light it and wish my sore shoulders away, uh?” Merriell’s tone was bland but his vowels curled out slow, caught in the molasses of Merriell’s self-satisfaction. 

“I said it ain’t for you, Merriell.” Gene snapped. “You know a healing is focused on a body.”

“Traiteur, sure, front and back; your memaw slapped my hands away enough.” Merriell smirked, shredded a raisin between his front teeth and blatantly disregarding that he’d denied any knowledge of healing just moments ago. “But you said this wasn’t traiteur stuff so no matter. I just light it up, have me a candle-lit bath upstairs in that big ol’ tub. No reason for you to be so insistent, Gene-Baptiste.”

“It really is made specific as far as I know, Merriell.” 

“You don’t know nobody like you know me, Gene. So. What’s it for?”

Gene pressed his hands flat to the porcelain tub, the water riding up his arms and lapping at his lazily rolled sleeves. “I am going to answer you and we are going to be grown-ups about this.”

“Sure.”

Gene turned around, crossed his sopping hands over his chest and leaned back against the sink. His lips were pressed tight and he knew he was tilting his head up just a bit, challenging. His eyes flitted across Merriell’s face and body but he was all sharp angles and loose limbs hiding coiled tension. His norm for months now; Gene couldn’t really read it.

“It ain’t for you.”

“Bullshit!”

“You agreed to be a grownup, Merl-Francis, so shut your mouth.” Gene rubbed his damp hand over his mouth, glaring until the other man settled down. “It ain’t for you. I made it for a broken man and you aren’t broken.”

Merriell snorted but his hands gripped tight at the rough fabric at his knees. “Got me a name that tells a different tale.”

“A shitty nickname given by men in diapers is not an advertisement for accurate predictions!”

“Oh yeah? Fine then, Gene, you tell me. Why would whatever this is go through all the trouble to give you a cure for a broken man if it ain’t me, uh? You think I’m stupid? I am all you have left; ain’t no one else for this shit to wind you up about if it ain’t me.”

“Jesus, you colossal asshole.” Gene raised his hands, scrubbed them through his hair and then down, over his eyes, pulling the skin taut and leaving his features strikingly gaunt for a few moments. “Yes, it wanted it for you but  _ I _ made the candle, Merriell, _ I _ shaped it and  _ I _ bled for it and I did not make it for you.”

“Then who’s your broken man, Gene?”

“He’s not my broken man, either. He’s yours.”

Silence stretched between them for long enough that Gene felt the anxiety rise in his throat and he found himself pacing towards the kitchen door just to hear the bayou. Just to be sure. When Merriell finally spoke it was low and it thrummed with anger.

“You don’t know Sledge.”

“I had to make a candle for a broken man; it held my hands and moved me like it owned me but that isn’t you. And it ain’t like being a traiteur, Merriell; I think it’s more about intent.” He looked down at his hands. “I think it’s more from me? I’m so damned tired it’s got to be. And he’s so damned important to you, how could I not make it for him?”

“You don’t know shit, Roe.”

“I got these magic powers that say otherwise.” He tried for dry but it just sounded tired and flat.

“Sledge, he came back just fine.”

“Like you did?” Gene put his hands up, quick. “No, that was shitty, I’m sorry. I think because I didn’t think you needed it but it needed to be made, I pulled? Or redirected.”

“Just straight sensical that was. A real eye-opener.”

“God, Merriell, come on. You really think I’d work this hard at something I didn’t feel was important?” Gene felt a hollow sort of frustration; an echo that he was quickly losing the energy to invest in. He scrubbed his hands through his hair again and slumped down against the screen door. “Or hey, maybe you’re right and this is just one more fucked up way this thing is sliding it’s fingers into my brain.”

“Maybe.” Merriell sounded less sure, however, doubt sliding through under contempt.

Gene closed his eyes and pressed back. He could hear the growing agitation of mosquitoes the longer he stayed there with the screen curving under his head as they worked to press closer and get a taste through netting and hair. “He’s your friend, Merriell, and I’ll follow you on this. We can, I don’t know, wrap it in the Bible and throw it in the bayou, Jumanji-style.”

“Sort of a leap to assume you’re working some unholy powers there.”

“Mm, you ain’t seen these dreams.”

“They’ve fucked you up, for certain sure.” Gene startled at the sudden closeness, an unexpected increase in volume. Merriell had come to squat beside him, hands dangling between his knees, head tilted away and scowling but he was there. “That conversation’s coming, just you wait.”

“Are you actually telling me we’re going to finish the one we’re having first?”

“You said we were going to be grown-ups, Gene.” Merriell glared at the floor, making a sharp cutting gesture between his knees with one hand before Gene could open his mouth. “No, shut up. You were already harping on Sledge before this candle shit. Give me one good reason why you think you or your weird non-Cajun professor or whatever it is isn’t just pulling your assumptions out your ass through your mouth.”

He pulled a face, taking a second to parse exactly what Merriell was getting at. “Firstly, that’s disgusting. Secondly, grown-up to grown-up, Burgin’s been writing.”

“What the fuck, Gene.” Flat tone, short vowels and Gene winced, unable to look up.

“You broke your arm, remember, and you made him write me that really gross love letter from Redacted via Frankfurt?” Gene rubbed his thumb over the corner of his mouth. He was picking up speed the longer he spoke but he couldn’t make himself stop. “He must have felt bad about it, maybe he thought I wouldn’t like it; he wrote me a letter along-side it, letting me know what happened and that you were okay. And then he just … kept writing them. Checking in, mostly. Never told me where you were but about how you were doing. Then, you know, a line about himself, just so I knew. Then De L’Eau crept in a bit, here and there. Sledge, Leyden; Oswalt some. I didn’t ask for them.”

“You didn’t send them back, either.”

“Well, no.” Gene had moved to start chewing at his butchered nail again. “You don’t really talk about anything when you leave besides a few tall tales and some name drops. It was nice. To know.”

“I don’t tell you that shit for a reason, Gene.” Merriell was all sharp, bitter anger but that sneaking, sliding pitch from this morning was back. He almost sounded scared.

Gene winced, rolled his head to the side so he could see Merriell hunching even further into himself. Sharp shoulder blades in relief through his shirt, fists clenched between his thighs; Merriell was nothing but tension. Gene found himself softening his tone in response, felt himself replying with a steadiness he wasn’t feeling. “I know you don’t, Merriell, but I watch the news as much as the next man and you weren’t really going to keep me from all of that. Burgin just smoothed us out a bit.”

“Fuck.” Merriell thumped back against the stone and then again. “Fuck, Gene.”

“I got his last letter a week ago.”

“I’ve been home for months now.”

“Yeah, well, like I said. Wrote me about the others some too; this time he had a lot to say about Sledge.”

Merriell was nearly vibrating with agitation. “Where’s the letter.”

“At home with the rest of them.” He paused then offered, “You didn’t take it none too well when I tried to ask you about the trip home so I’ve just been letting you bring him up and going from there.”

“Fuck,  _ fuck _ .”

“So yeah, I was harping on Sledge before I was upped and shanghaied into late night wax-works and there’s my big non-assumption to go with all my little reasons to care.”

The vibrations picked up and then Merriell was ducking his head down between his knees, his arms coming up to sling over the crown of his head, across his forehead. He didn’t say anything.

Gene closed his eyes, reached out and gripped the back of Merriell’s neck and tugged, turning himself until Merriell’s shoulders and the side of his head were tucked into Gene’s stomach, his own side pressing bare to the screen door where his shirt rode up. He slung his other arm across his waist, curling it as best he could around Merriell’s own limbs. It was too hot for this; dampness already weighing their clothes down everywhere they touched but it didn’t matter. He just sat there and let the mosquitoes be drawn to madness against his side by the salt that gathered there. He’d worry about it later.

“We’ll do whatever you want, here.”

“I’m thinking about punching Burgie.” Merriell tossed back, muffled by knees and arms and the cotton of Gene’s shirt. Gene hummed back tiredly and into that quiet little space Merriell murmured. “He really hurting?”

“Burgin seemed to think so.” Gene paused, rubbing his thumb in little circles against Merriell’s neck. “I’m inclined to agree.”

“More than just intuition, Gene-Baptiste?”

“A trauma course or two goes a long way to support my hinky new powers, you know.”

Merriell huffed against his side. Gene was willing to let him hide there as long as he wanted; his own breath was even and deep and he felt heavy in the rising heat of the afternoon. “On your word then, Gene. I’ll take the truck out tomorrow, beg a boat to Butte. I can send it from there; up to him if he uses it.”

“That’s generally how medicine goes, yeah.”

Merriell snuffled disgustingly and then rubbed his nose into Gene’s shirt before unfolding. He slapped lightly at his hands and arms to make him let go but all the same he kept one hand pressed against Gene’s ribs until he was sure Gene himself was steady on the little stairway. “Maybe it’d be best you come with me. We could close this place back up, head back to Baton Rouge.”

“After you spent a whole morning playing around in the well?” Gene shook his head. “You’ll never find a barge out and I’m not leaving my truck for the bayou to swallow up; I’ve got a house and land, not a disposable income. Naw, you go. Bring some smokes back. What we have won’t last the rest of the week.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to.” Gene replied back, serene in his exhaustion. “All you have to do is come back.”

“What the fuck kinda statement is that.” Merriell sounded suspicious, like maybe he sensed Gene’s reasoning wasn’t all so logical as navigating the Atchafalaya without a boat of their own. He was a little right; despite the dizzying spiral of control in his own life, the thought of leaving this house tugged dully at something just behind his breast bone. If he left now, what would he be leaving of himself behind?

It was best not to let any of that air out just yet so Gene kicked out at Merriell’s ankle half-heartedly. “It was the touching kind they make you learn for breadth requirements. Help me up, I should get changed so I can see what sort of carcasses you’ve been rolling into the well all morning.”

“Got better sense than that; you’ll see when I roll your carcass straight into the bayou for the gators to get fat on.”

“Still not one of your Marine friends, Merriell.”

Merriell levelled him an unimpressed look in response and then kicked out at Gene’s own ankles before walking past without helping him up. “Just put on shoes, Gene. You’re a damn mess anyway and I ain’t waiting for you.”

After all, they both knew he was going to sleep in the truck cab and eat what was left of the raisins in the trail mix so that Merriell had something to complain about later. Gene sighed, waited until he heard the clatter of Merriell’s work boots on tile before he levered himself upright and followed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you by Shannon sharing [Which Witch (Demo)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbCsoMOJMec) with me and now that's just the theme for most of this chapter.
> 
> Things get maybe a little heavier here so proceed with that in mind and if you want some extra tags ya'll let me know
> 
> also Butte La Rose doesn't have a post office.

Laughter surrounded him and nothing else.

Gene staggered, trying to get his bearings. He’d expected the table, the tea, and instead there was nothing under his feet and he felt vertigo grip at him. “This is a bit of a jump from our usual dog and pony show.” 

Hands at his elbows, nails pressing little crescents into his skin. It didn’t help to orientate him; he felt like the pressure should be moving him through the empty space. “Don’t sass, mon ‘tit chien.” 

“I have so little else to do right now.” He tried to shrug the grip off but only succeeded in encouraging it to run up along his arms and settle, one at his shoulder and the other curling — each finger a slow, deliberate tap — around his throat.

Gene stilled.

The laughter rang out again and the hand lifted from his shoulder to card through his hair. “Better, boy. I was so pleased with your work. You really made that healing all your own but then, it is in the blood, you know.”

“I don’t.” Gene paused, waiting for the reprisal before he continued. “I don’t know.”

“Well, of course you do; your family have been healers for such a long time.”

“I don’t understand, I didn’t think this was about my grandmere.”

“Not her, boy! The other side! The _ important _ side.”

Gene licked his lips. “My daddy wasn’t a traiteur.”

“Oh, my sweet boy. Your daddy was  _ nothing _ .” The hand in his hair suddenly tightened painfully. “Your paw paw went to war and he never came back here; took a useless job in the city and had a useless, pretty son.”

Fingers loosened, petting him soothing as Gene gasped for breath that he was having trouble finding under the fingers that still lingered around his throat. Her tone went soft, contemplative. Kind. “Your grandmere must have hated him.”

“What —”

“Well, who wouldn’t? A fine traiteur like that and her daughter steps out with a useless, floundering boy like your daddy?” The fingers tapped against his throat almost thoughtfully and then slowly, so slowly tightened. “But that’s really neither here nor there now is it.  _ You  _ are here now and we have _ so much _ to cover.”

Gene’s stomach dropped out and then he was at his table and the scent of greenery and dirt grew around him, heady. He clutched convulsively at the bench under him, fingers scrabbling for purchase against the smooth wood. The pressure of the hands lifted just as abruptly and Gene found himself gasping between bouts of gagging, rolling coughs. 

“Oh hush now, there’s work to be done.” A thick book slid towards him across the table top, moving slow and smooth despite the imperfections in the wood under it. Long, many-knuckled fingers curled briefly along the cover and then crept back where Eugene’s eyes couldn’t follow. “Take it.”

He stared at it, unmoving, still gasping.

“ _ Take it _ .” It hissed.

Gene’s hands floated up and curled around the spine. The book cover was plain; rough cloth in a light blue that had been rubbed raw at the corners and where the spine must have often laid open. It was obviously old and well-used and the spine crackled under his fingers when he pulled it slowly towards himself like the glue had started to give. There was no title, no clasp, no way to distinguish it from any number of old, worn books except that it felt warm under his fingers. 

Gene cautiously opened the cover to the tender, approving hiss of his companion and found a blank page slightly yellowed and curling in the way that books left to linger in the humidity did. When he went no further, staring down at the blank page before him, the other hissed again and the hand Gene had pressed to the corner of the book was snatched up, twisted until his palm faced upward.

“Stop it!” Gene tried to jerk backwards and under its grasp the bones of his wrist grated together audibly. 

“Stop it,” The voice mocked. The hand pressed a single sharp nail to the center of his palm, digging painfully until a small bead of blood welled up. “I told you, it’s in your blood, boy. Use it.”

Their hands turned until his palm hovered over the page. Gene pushed the book away with his other hand so that when his blood dropped it hissed into the table top. “I ain’t doing nothing until I know what’s going on!”

The nail jabbed upwards into his palm and Gene bit back a scream, going rigid. As sudden as the pain came it went and with it went the spindly, wrong hand. Gene jerked, pulling his arm into his chest and cradling his hand against himself. Blood smeared into his shirt, but under that was unblemished skin. His other arm jerked inward instinctively to protect himself and he ended up with the book caught between his hands, palm to back. “What the  _ fuck _ !”

A hiss from behind him had Gene hunched in on himself defensively but he couldn’t stop the fingers that slowly crawled up his neck and into his hair, carding and curling. “Sorry, mon ‘tit chien, so sorry. You’re so frustrating, child. Can’t you just do what’s good for you, just this once? Hmm? Just a little blood to make it yours, that’s all.”

Gene clenched his jaw, breath hitching. He shifted, uncomfortable, trying to pull slightly away and in his arms the book shifted as well as he absently curled the fingers of both hands around it more securely. 

It crooned and coaxed. “See, already it's yours. Just a little blood, my boy. To seal the deal.”

“Ain’t making anymore deals I don’t know. You’re the one who said I shouldn’t.”

“But you know me.” The voice deepened, crackled, but it still whispered like it was coaxing a child to sleep. Gene felt an echo of what he had in his kitchen that morning as the dream pulsed around him and went fuzzy at the edges. “You’re in me, blood going back centuries; we have a long standing deal, me and yours. You’re mine; turned the keys and let yourself in.”

“Are you implying I sold my soul to you? Don’t you have to agree to that?”

One long-fingered hand creaked across his shoulder, fingers jerking erratically as it crawled down across his chest to cradle against his arms and chest and pressed him backwards into nothing and pressure and heat and the wet, cloyingness of the bayou. “Can’t sell what’s already sold.”

His breath hitched again and then caught in his chest. “You can’t be serious.”

The voice didn’t reply, there were just fingers carding through his hair as he sat, cradling the book between his hands. Gene licked his lips; pressed his tongue to the bottom of his lip and tried to keep his heart from pounding out of his chest. Still, he found himself questioning it, tone careful and shoulders tense as if he could somehow outrun any punishment. “If I’m already in this, why do I have to do anything to the book?”

It hummed. “It’s a good tool, a family tool, but the grooves are made for another man’s fingers; similar to yours, workable but not perfect.”

Gene stared down at the tabletop, eyes shuddering past the hand cradling his chest. The book reminded him of the kitchen when he’d first arrived; separate from this dizzying nightmare world it felt comfortable, an invitation to settle down to work. He ran his thumbs against the rough fabric binding thoughtfully. The few times he’d laid hands -- before his grandmere had passed and he’d pulled away from that community to focus on his thesis work and the people tumbling through the clinic’s doors in the wake of Barry -- he’d felt a little like he did now, just pressing the thing to his ribs. The echo of a tug behind his breastbone from the afternoon felt like home.

His hands slid down, under the jerking, skittering pressure of the others' grip and he placed the worn book down onto the table once more, the spine creaking open. Blood welled up at his fingertip and Gene carefully pressed it down, brushing against the fragile page; His blood stained bright red briefly, feathering like a poor ink then the stain browned and sunk into the rough fibers of the page like it had never been. 

The world tilted and Gene choked, clutched convulsively at the book and felt it soften under his hands. Where there had been sun-damaged cloth there was now soft, durable leather stained warm chestnut. In contrast the paper felt crips between his fingertips, thick and smooth and creamy white except for one, perfect, red fingerprint. Gene knew without turning his own hands over that it was his.

His vision settled and he slumped forward, exhausted, with only the grip in his hair and the skittering hand cradling his chest to hold him upright.

Breath and weight against his temple. “You’ll be perfect.”

  
  


When Gene woke, bleary-eyed, it took him some time staring at the wavering patterns of light bleeding through the whitewash before he noticed Merriell hovering beside him, knees up and scowl hardly lightened by the dancing lines of light across his face. “Me’ll?”

Merriell pressed his lips tighter together, his shoulders sharp peaks pressing at his ears and his fists drawing tight lines in the linen of his pants. Gene felt a little shock of alarm sprint down his spine, sparking his brain into further wakefulness. “Mer’ll? S’the matter?”

He needn’t have bothered asking because as he started to struggle up, to reach out and pat down Merriell for injury or to drag him out of his stupor, the book he had been hugging to his chest slid down into his lap with a gentle thump. Gene froze, hands outstretched, and both their gazes slid away from each other to follow it down.

“What,” Merriell bit out, venom sharpening his usual morning rumble, “The fuck, Gene.”

Gene’s brain fired in panic and he almost shot a “surprise” back at him; instead what came out was a choked yelp that died in his throat. Surprisingly the world around them stayed firm and Gene’s own panic evened out when Merriell reached over and fisted the back of Gene’s shirt, knuckles pressing into his spine at the base of his neck. Steadying him and grounding him. He gasped. “It’s okay, I’m okay.”

He finished his own stretch over to pat clumsily at Merriell’s elbow and knee with one hand while the other drifted downward to pet the supple leather of the book cover. “Startled is all; didn’t expect to wake up cuddling it.”

“That’s all?” Merriell scowled harder, knuckles digging a bit more firmly into the knob of Gene’s spine and Gene, who had lowered his own hand, started patting Merriell’s foot in response. 

“Well, I agreed to this one.” Gene pulled his knees up slightly so that the book was angled and shifted over until he was using Merriell’s knees as a brace, forcing the other man to soften up his own stance in order to support them both better. There was the added advantage, as far as Gene was concerned, that Merriell probably wouldn’t drop him on his ass as tangled as they were. He tossed the cover open carelessly past the first nearly-empty page to show Merriell that the first few sheets were covered in tight, sharp writing, inked illustrations of plants and seeds and neat little measurements. 

Merriell reached over his shoulder and sharply flipped through some of the pages while Gene settled back a little further into Merriell’s knees to let him. There were little tabs everywhere in that first, cramped section of the book, brightly coloured plastic that looked out of place in the somber tome, each of them labelled with the same tight penmanship. As Merriell tugged at the markers, flipping back and forth between them his expression softened slightly and then he snorted, tapping sharply at the page. “You’re a fucking nerd.”

Gene grinned, wide and lazy with exhaustion and relief. “There’s an index. It updates itself.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Because it updates itself?”

“No  _ Hermoine _ , because you woke up with a magic book after freaking out over a candle and suddenly everything is just peachy keen!” Merriell rapped sharply against his spine. 

‘ _ Peachy keen _ ’ Gene mouthed then shook his head, arching slightly away from Merriell’s knuckles. As if that movement was the signal, Merriell shoved at him with knees and feet and hands until Gene was forced to sit back up again under his own power. He folded slightly, legs sliding down and crossing, the book still cradled between his knees, page settling open on a two-page spread filled with a brightly inked drawing of english lavender and a mess of notes as well as a few boldly lined, sharp-stroked unhappy faces. “It ain’t ‘peachy keen’, Merl-Francis, I just expected it, this time, is all.”

“You like it,” Merriell accused.

“Well I wrote it, I’m bound to be a little fond of it!”

“You made the fucking candle too, far as I recall.”

Gene paused, took a breath and thought. His face scrunched up tight, the lines that had gathered over the last few years of loss and stress sharp against dark circles and chapped lips. Slowly he meted it out, feeling it out for the both of them. The experience of the dreams, the nightmare quality of his limbs moving without him, the hands in his hair and at his throat; the sharp contrast of triumph in defiance and choice and of home warm in his chest. “The candle might have been different if I hadn’t been strung along in my own body. I liked that I can do something for that Sledge of yours; same as I would if I laid hands or slapped a bandage to him.” 

Merriell stared at him, face unchanging, unyielding and Gene slapped the pages of the book gently to draw his attention down to it. “Same same, here, Merl-Francis.”

There was silence for a long, drawn minute and then Merriell was leaning close, ribs over his knees, arms jutting at sharp angles as he folded forward. His eyes were wide, brows low as he watched every twitch in Gene’s face when Merriell drawled out, slow and deep and molasses thick hiding glass. “It tortured you.”

Gene reared back from Merriell and the book, his hand flattening and then curling against the pages. “I don’t really think it’s that extreme.”

“I do.” Merriell didn’t let him create distance, pressing forward even as his chin jerked upright to emphasize his point. “I think I might be the more informed judge here, Gene-Baptiste.”

Gene’s expression crumpled a bit then tightened, his mouth a thin, mulish line. “Well, I think I’m equipped to know my own lived experiences, Merl-Francis.”

“Don’t you pull that bullshit clinic talk on me. You been hounded, lost sleep. You say it cut you for sassing back like that weren’t built right into you.” Merriell’s eyes rolled downward, slowly, towards Gene’s lap and Gene’s breath hitched in response as he noticed how tightly he’d started to clutch at the book. “If that ain’t torture it’s abuse. Which you want to pick out for yourself, hmm?”

“Jesus Christ, Merriell!”

“Well?” Merriell demanded. “Ain’t it? You can’t tell me that never came up in your fancy classes. You need a list to check mark? Let’s keep going then; how about when it pulls your hair, chokes you out, you like that or--”

“Stop, fuck, just stop.” Gene raised his hand between them, a sharp thrust like he could cut the words away. “You asshole, Merriell.”

“Sure,” Merriell shrugged, nonchalant now that he’d won, and he slumped back, slouching on his elbows. “You be coming with me this morning, I think.”

Gene slumped, curling in on himself, and they sat like that for a moment in sharp contrast to each other. Gene felt exhaustion hit him again; maybe Merriell was right. He hadn’t been this tired, this twitchy, since he’d tried to run practicum and work full time at the clinic. He still maintained his grip on the book, however and he didn’t bother to glare at Merriell when he stared at Gene’s hands curled around ink and leather pointedly. 

Still, Merriell let him alone with it, just rolled to his feet and gave Gene’s shoulder a rough pat and a push as he rose to start dressing. Gene was relieved to have a moment to himself to flip through the book and ground himself. Here, outside the blackness, the book still felt familiar, an extension of himself. It wasn’t quite a limb, Gene still had to work and study with it but he thought that it wouldn’t matter if Merriell had tried to make him leave it somewhere; all he’d have to do is reach for it and it would be there.

He was still picking absently at one of his plastic markers when his own jeans thumped heavily into the back of his head, followed by a shirt. “Merriell!”

“Stop lazing, we don’t know how long it’ll take a boat to come along and if I have to drive around here in the dark, I’m going to make you walk in front of the truck.” Merriell kept a lazy eye on him; when Gene managed to wriggle into his jeans without major injury he nodded to himself. “I’ve got coffee on. You be out to the truck soonish.”

No ‘or else’ was implied; it didn’t really need to be. If he wasn’t down in a sufficient enough time, Merriell would return to bitch at him and Eugene knew it. Gene just grunted in acknowledgement, still fighting with his shirt as Merriell clattered down the staircase. 

When he’d finished fighting his own laundry and located his wallet, Merriell was already sitting in the driver’s seat. Gene slid himself in beside him, slamming the book and the candle into the glovebox with a glare. Merriell, in reply, handed off a travel mug and started the engine. “Whoops.”

“The whole reason we’re going, Merl-Francis--”

“I think you’ll find I have very different reasons, suh.”

Gene opened his mouth, about to say more, when they rammed over a very large divot in the field and Gene bounced so hard his tailbone nearly broke itself free. He fumbled quickly to keep his coffee from following suit as Merriell blandly offered another “Whoops.”

Gene glowered back but settled as best he could; he’d raise the issue again when Merriell didn’t have a half-ton at his bidding. Even without Merriell actively seeking the roughest road, it wasn’t an easy ride. It had been dry the entire time they’d been out here and the teeming plant life had sucked what remaining standing water there had been greedily until hard clay and rock remained scattered without reason where tree roots hadn’t already forced their way into the path. Some areas that might have been flatter were avoided because the undergrowth was so thick it was possible they’d work their way around the axel if they weren’t hiding other surprises. Between that and the wildlife that screamed warning at their approach, Gene stayed uncomfortably awake the whole trip down to the same riverside house they’d arrived at.

He didn’t stay awake in the boat, however. The waters of Bayou Chene, even of the Atchafalaya, were deep, still things and surrounded as they were by cloyingly heavy greenery little sounded filtered in from deeper in the wetlands. As the little converted school boat pushed through the water with nothing but their ferryman’s rumbled attempts to maintain a conversation with Merriell and the static of the deep-sunk motor, Gene found himself dozing against Merriell’s shoulder, book and candle cradled protectively in his lap.

He didn’t dream.

He might have been relieved about that.

Instead he drifted as the old man asked Merriell increasingly specific questions about where they were staying and why they’d come to Merriell’s increasingly creepy silences. When they finally hit a dock at Butte La Rose, the old man had just enough information to have a tale to tell about a Roe setting up house with a possible murderer down Chene way and not much else. Merriell didn’t even let him thank the man, just pushed him up and out of the boat like if he heard one more question he’d show the old gossip what a real murder looked like and honestly Gene was too tired and feeling too petty to smooth over the waters there. Instead he offered a small grimace and a mouthed ‘thanks’ over Merriell’s shoulder to really help showcase what poor manners Merriell had and what a trial it was for Gene, his beleaguered, well-mannered friend.

Merriell shoved at the back of his head and Gene laughed, caught. Slowly they drifted back together as they walked up Butte La Rose’s gravel roads and by the time they’d hit the post office and stuffed their faces at a diner the jittery edges between them had smoothed out again. Merriell even made a show of renting them a room near the boat rentals as if he didn’t fully intend to coax Gene back up out the basin without his truck or his laptop and nearly untouched thesis come morning. He didn’t even comment when Gene settled against the headboard of one of the beds with his book and started muttering under his breath, pinching the thumb of his right hand and two fingers together as he held the book open on his knees with his forearm. Instead, Merriell folded over himself, halfway around Gene himself, and watched with a wary sort of pride as Gene rolled his fingers together and pulled upward leaving a gleaming thread in his wake. 

“What’s it for?”

“Healing.” Gene smirked, ducking his head down and returned to his murmuring prayer as he looped his hand back under and began to pull again.

“Fuck you, ‘healing’, that’s all you do! What’s it  _ for _ .” Merriell didn’t wait for an answer, just snatched Gene’s spellbook and turned it to peer at the page. Gene didn’t bother to stop him although he scowled fiercely. “‘Mending for a broken heart’? What the hell is this, you practicing love spells now?”

“I make the thread, I think I can probably make it mend whatever I want; won’t know ‘less I practice.” 

Merriell huffed but handed the book back and even left off at just keeping a wary watch out until the thread faded away and Gene settled down to make notes. Merriell was only gracious in compromise when he thought he was really winning and Gene acknowledged the odds might be leaning a little heavily in Merriell’s favour as they settled down to bed.

Didn't matter, they were still going back in the morning; Gene wasn't leaving his damned truck to the swamp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So at some point between google docs to Ao3 the entire first section of this fic went missing. Which I bet made it real confusing when Gene woke up clutching a spellbook like a teddybear really confusing. 
> 
> So. Sorry about that. So sorry.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> French translations are in the end note for those on mobile. For everything else ~~there's Visa~~ you should be able to hover over the text. Please. Excuse google and I; we're trying our best.

They didn’t go back in the morning. 

Gene woke, more tired than he had been yesterday, without any clear memory of a dream; just the residue of frustrating static lingering behind his eyes and the feeling that there had been pressure, fleeting images, and insistent, muted voices. He was on his side, curled tight into the covers facing the window and he scrunched his nose up against the ache in his body that seemed to be from more than just the sloping mattress under him. The air in the room was cold and dry, rushing against his face and slipping under the thin blanket that he’d tangled himself in. Merriell must have turned the thermostat way down some time during the night; Gene’s nose and throat were uncomfortably dry in the way only shitty forced air could do. 

He blinked a few times, eyes gummy, and lazily looked around the room; it was still dark even though the cheap plastic alarm beamed a steady 09:03 at him from the side table. The curtains were wide open and Merriell was there, leaning against the window with arms slung loosely across his chest, staring out.

Outside their small shared room, the unseasonable dry spell appeared to have broken and rain poured, fat drops hitting the window at such a direct angle that Gene knew the wind that had blown it in was still going strong although everything seemed muted. If he dug his head into the pillow just right he could make out the dark greys and blues of a truly torrential storm roiling the murky water and setting the floating docks to snapping in their ties. He couldn’t see from here — the little B&B back against the river — but he would bet the highway was sheeted with sloughing rain.

They weren’t going anywhere today at all.

Gene moaned, turned his face into the pillow. “Café?”

“Came knocking at the door earlier; said they had some downstairs.” Merriell’s voice was low and amused. “She also said you just looked so cute, all them dark circles and toes peeking out, she’d let you sleep; no check-out time.”

“We ain’t checking out.” Gene grumbled, garbled, into the pillow.

“What?”

Gene huffed, then craned his head up so his chin was digging into the cotton batting. “I said we ain’t checking out. I can see out that window just fine; you are not taking me anywhere in that.”

“What, that?” Merriell’s voice went high and lilted with amusement. “Just a little water, no big deal.”

“Merriell, if we leave, we will float straight down that highway to Morgan.” 

“I figure with the angle the water’s taking, I can at least steer us to Lafayette.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh sure, ooh rah.”

Gene snorted laughter and dropped his face back into the pillow with a forceful little ‘fwump’. A few moments and he was breathing deeply again, muscles unlocking and sinking into the mattress. Merriell, mercifully, let him be; patting the mattress near his foot once before Gene heard him pad across the room and leave, the door automatically closing behind him with a soft, slow shift along the carpet.

He floated for a while, half-asleep, the gentle hiss of the air conditioner and the pattering of rain against the window pulling him under. The static still sat behind his eyes, picking up and then dropping away again without reason and pressing the side of his face and nose into the pillow helped to settle it for a time. Some time later the door opened and then closed again and a weight settled beside him, shifting the mattress and forcing Gene to roll slightly towards the dip. Merriell’s toes jabbed him in the ribs and he mumbled an unhappy, fuzzy greeting to him that grew progressively fuzzier and more irritated the more Merriell tried to talk at him. Finally Merriell settled himself and the jab of his toes became a firm pressure along his side and under his ribcage, pressing up slightly just where Gene’s back snapped with tension. He let out a pleased little mutter in response, flinging one arm out to pat at Merriell, probably hitting him across the chest with the back of his hand. The other arm slung over his face, pressing the crook of his elbow into his nose and eyes.

Merriell cursed at him softly, grabbing for his flailing, patting arm but then didn’t do anything with it, just rested it in place comfortably. It made Gene smirk; a slow, satisfied curl of contentment from under the shadow of his arm and Merriell cursed at him again but still didn’t move him. He floated a bit longer, now that it was obvious Merriell was just going to let him do it, dropping down into real sleep once or twice but it was hard to tell; nothing changed in the room to give away the slow creep of time passing.

“What time is it?” He eventually muttered.

“Coming up on noon.” The sound of a flipping page. 

“Jesus.” He still felt exhausted, body heavy, but he knew lingering any longer would just start adding aches he didn’t need. Gene rolled a bit, struggling, until he could settle himself upright against the wall, his shirt rucking up uncomfortably as he went. Merriell didn’t move, just continued to flip through Gene’s spellbook with a practiced disinterest. Just around Merriell’s shoulder, on the little table that was set between the two beds, sat two styrofoam cups. “One of those fo’ me?”

“Was,” Merriell agreed. “Until you decided to flop around in bed like a dead fish for three hours. Drank it.”

Ah. That would have been the toe jabbing. Gene spared a moment to mourn it, rubbing his face down then slid off the bed and went to wash up. 

When he returned, face scrubbed until his nose was bright red and shirt sniffed for appropriateness, Merriell was gone and the book was tossed haphazardly into the sheets. Gene snorted but left it where it was; safer in the room then it would be carting it around where questions could be asked.

He found Merriell downstairs in the B&B’s little dining patio, knees and elbows spilling over the little sling-backed chair as he watched two men struggling to slot thick plastic panes over the screens. On the table in front of him was a spread of pickable foods; meats and cheeses and melons that looked like Merriell had been digging through indiscriminately.

“You awake.” Came a pleased voice behind him and Gene startled, half-turned in the direction of the owner who was cradling a tray with a coffee service to her hip. She was shying past middle-aged and as neatly put together today as she had been yesterday, her only concession to the rain being an overly large cardigan which almost completely obscured her neatly-pressed shorts. She made Gene feel uncomfortably under-dressed in his slept-in shirt and rumpled jeans. “Oh, you awake but you don’t look like you should be.”

“Ma’am.” Gene bobbed his head and gave her a tight, twitching smile. “Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“Oh ya friend’s been down and around, don’t you worry none.” She grinned and walked towards the desk at the front of the house, still talking as if she expected Gene to follow. The tray was slid from her hip to the top of the desk with a careless rattle and then she was at the little guest book, flipping pages. “He tried to book you out but I seen you two walk in here; now I suppose you be the sensible one, mm?”

Gene aimed a small smile down at the tray as he steadied one of the slowly spinning mugs. “We might take turns.”

“Well, here’s your turn then. You go ahead and sign this for another night’s stay and I’ll throw in the meals.” Her pen cut sharply towards his face and Gene jerked backwards to avoid it. “Shh shh now, I be feeding us well enough, an extra potato or two won’t break me.”

Her eyes raised from the paperwork and she quirked an eyebrow at him, giving him a slow, deliberate, and uncomfortable once over. “Maybe a few extra potatoes; certainly won’t break you none.”

Gene grabbed the pen out of the air gently before she could swing it any closer to his eye and rocked forward again; dragging the bill towards himself and signing off. “Thanks.”

“You a quiet boy, ain’t ya?” She winked. “Wasn’t like we were go’n get more customers in this weather, anyway, you be doing me a favour. Now, you take that coffee with you when you go.”

Gene gathered up the tray and did as he was told, sliding it onto the table that Merriell sprawled at. Settling in his own chair, he reached over to cuff him lightly on the back of the head before diverting to make up a cup. “Thanks for waiting, asshole.”

Merriell kept his eyes on the two weathering the windows and jeered silently as they fumbled about on the soaked boards. “Didn’t hear you fall in the bathtub; figured you were awake enough to navigate stairs this time.”

Gene snorted, shoving the cup at him before making his own. “I should have gone back to bed, if this is the shit I get.”

“Maybe you should do that anyway.” Merriell rolled his head lazily towards him but his gaze was intent. “You look like shit.”

“I feel like shit.” He admitted, picking through the lunch tray. The buzzing static had picked back up and he hoped the caffeine and food might help to lay it back to rest, at least for a while. “Best to be up, though, I think. Probably overstayed my welcome in bed, if anything.”

Merriell snorted his disagreement with a pointed roll of his eyes over Gene’s face but didn’t press the issue. Instead he slurped disgustingly at his coffee and moved on, like he had a checklist of conversation topics Gene wasn’t going to like to get through. “Called a rental place; they won’t send anything down today with the sluce, the fucking babies, but they’d be willing to have one waiting in Breaux Bridge so we can drag our sorry asses home tomorrow.”

“Merriell Shelton, what the fuck! My thesis is back there!”

“You going to tell me you don’t have that backed up on a drive, Gene-Baptiste?” 

Gene gaped, coffee cup pressed, half-tilted, at his chin. “Well, my truck isn’t backed up.”

“I can go get it next week, no problem.”

“Yes, problem!”

Merriell studied him silently for a moment then shrugged, a languid roll of sharp shoulders under his tank top. “Nah.”

“Merriell!”

“I said ‘nah’, Gene.” He turned in his seat, limbs pulling in and twisting until one knee was curled up against his chest and the other flung over the arm of the chair, close enough to kick lightly at Gene’s thigh with the ball of his foot. “Look, we go home and if you still want to go back in a week’s time, once you’ve had some distance, we’ll go back.”

“A week, Merriell?” Gene knew he sounded pained but he couldn’t seem to stop the little hitch in his voice that didn’t belong there.

Merriell tossed him a baffled look at the noise but held firm. Gene couldn’t even blame him; he felt more panic at the thought of being away from the house then was rational. “A week. It’ll be fine, no one’s going to go raid your haunted mansion while you’re out.” Merriell leaned forward to pick at some ham, conversation ended. 

Gene slumped into his seat and sipped at his coffee in a way he knew looked sullen but honestly at this point he was too tired to keep fighting against Merriell about this. “A week. Less if I can’t get the time off, though!” 

“You’re pulling casual shifts now and I know it.” Merriell looked unconcerned. He would be; Merriell had been holding down little construction jobs between bar fights so it wasn’t as if he had to hurry back either. That had been half the appeal of getting out to the house in the first place. Gene sighed in defeat and cuddled his coffee; he almost pulled his knees up to his chest but at the last second remembered that this wasn’t his house when a piece of plastic wobbled to the floor with a crack. Gene jumped, then pursed his lips, flapping his hand to remove the coffee. 

“Amateurs.” Merriell scoffed but didn’t rise to help just cut his eyes back towards Gene. “Look, you that worried, you give me the keys and I’ll run back down first thing Monday, grab your laptop.”

“Keys?” Gene muttered, confused, around the hand he’d stuck in his mouth to sooth the burn. A tight feeling coiled in his chest, sat against his lungs for a moment before it slithered down to his belly and pulled sharp and hard. The world nearly pulled with it before settling and Gene blinked in surprise. He found that he had let his fingers drop from his mouth and instead was rubbing his thumb in thoughtful circles at the corner of his lips. His voice, when it came again, was muffled and distant to his own ears. “Sure, Merriell.”

Merriell’s eyes were narrowed at him now and Gene shook his hand out, wrapping it back around his mug with a thin-lipped scowl. “Don’t start, Merl-Francis, I’m just tired.”

Merriell pulled a face that seemed to say ‘you are that’ and ‘I’m only letting this go because I’m winning’ but he didn’t actually say anything, just sprawled one leg out so that his socked foot rested on the table, nudging the coffee closer to Gene’s side of the table. Gene rolled his eyes and pointedly sipped at his half-full cup as they settled in for a long afternoon of doing nothing. Merriell occasionally raised his voice to mock the men in the house as they went about their tasks but stayed studiously silent when the owner came around to clean up the trays and drop a deck of cards in their place. Gene made it to dinner through sheer force of will and because old maid with Merriell didn’t take a lot of skill but did require concentration as they both tended to devolve to cheating quickly. Still, he found himself nodding off over the promised potatoes and it wasn’t long before he excused himself to flop face-first into the unmade bed, the static behind his eyes overpowering even the stale hum of the air conditioner.

He woke the same as he had the day before, not remembering when he’d finally fallen asleep. Static and pressure pushed at his head, annoying background noise to his thoughts, and his limbs felt as knotted as the sheets that choked up around him. At some point Merriell must have wrestled the book out from underneath him because he could make out the blurry edge if he tilted his head towards the side table.

“You awake?”

Gene snorted in response and rolled slightly, pulling his limbs in tight before arching back out, trying to work away the ache of his back. He flopped one arm out, over his head, trying to reach the alarm clock but only succeeded in knocking into his spellbook and smacking them both to the ground.

“You awake.” Merriell sounded amused and Gene scowled fuzzily into his pillow. “Up; you cozied our host so much she’s making her sons take us to Breaux Bridge.” 

Gene groaned but pulled himself from the covers and stumbled through his absolutions, Merriell sprawled at the edge of the bed and nudging him away from corners and abandoned bedding with his foot as needed. He wasn’t any more steady on his feet by the time Merriell was packing him into the back of the SUV, shoving him head-first in an attempt to avoid Gene’s guilty offers to pay for gas. The rain had lightened considerably and now the roads were pitted with puddles but water no longer sheeted sideways, pushing gravel in its wake. It was almost a comfortable ride.

Almost. He slumped against Merriell’s shoulder as they pulled away from Butte la Rose; his eyes shut and his lips pursed tight, his mouth a sharp, chapped gash across a face that pulled gaunt. Gene reached up, rubbing his thumb unsteadily into the knot that folded heavily between his eyebrows not sure if he was trying to smooth it out or sooth away the static that had started to cut in and out more frequently; annoying like a mosquito and just as difficult to pin down. “Still feel like shit.”

“Still look it, too.”

In the front, the brother in the passenger seat craned backwards. “Hey, hey, is he sick? I don’t want no one puking in our car!”

“Mind your business.” Merriell snapped, shoving and nudging until his arm was around Gene’s shoulder, pulling him in tight so that they swayed together. It helped, not constantly bumping against him and Gene sighed.

By the time they’d reached the car rental place, Gene felt in turn vacant and tight inside his own body. Merriell was reluctant to take him inside and honestly Gene didn’t want to go in; the rain felt good against his skin and he’d wriggled out of Merriell’s hoodie so that he could feel it against his skin. Just focusing on where the drops landed, counting them, tracking the slide down his arms was grounding; like curling his toes up and pressing them flat inside his shoes helped him to feel planted. He was tired and pinched and he just wanted to lay back down but he settled for pulling a smoke from his back pocket and letting something other than static fill his lungs.

When Merriell returned, he tugged the hoodie back up Gene’s arms with a scowl and then stole his cigarette, letting it dangle from his own lips with only a few wasteful puffs. Gene scowled back, glaring through scratchy red eyes but Merriell paid that no notice, he just led Gene to the car as if they were following a regular morning routine. 

Merriell’s hands covered the lip of the car door one moment and then he was sitting beside him; suddenly behind the steering wheel with his hand pressed to the back of Gene’s neck. Gene rolled his head toward him and did his best to raise his eyebrows when the car didn’t start.

His friend’s expression wasn’t blank but it was one of those new ones he’d come back with that Gene just couldn’t place. His tone was purposefully steady and  _ that  _ Gene knew because that was his tone; he sort of resented it being used against him when he couldn’t use any other clue to figure out where they were sitting. “Be honest with me, Eugene, should I be taking you to the hospital?”

“ _J'ai juste besoin de rentrer à la maison_.” Gene murmured. “ _Ramène-moi à la maison_ , Merl-Francis?”

There were a few moments of silence and then Merriell moved back into his own seat and started the car. “Yeah, okay.”

They rolled onto the I-10 and Gene’s head lolled against the window. It was hard to focus on the scenery; the land leading up to the Atchafalaya Basin was flat and grassy and where it wasn’t dotted by repeating industrial car lots, there was a single line of scraggly trees planted as a noise break that bled and blended into each other until Gene’s eyes nearly crossed. He closed his eyes, tried to breathe in through his mouth and almost welcomed the press of Merriell’s cigarette smoke as it swirled around inside the rental because it masked the salty taste that has invaded his mouth. 

Twenty minutes passed, the trees became greener, heavy-limbed and abundant and the heat pressed down thicker and thicker the closer they came to the water. They passed the off-ramps and Gene’s eyes slitted open. He rolled his head down and tried to pull his knees up despite the seatbelt, tried to get comfortable but there was a tug pulling his stomach sharply back against his spine. He whined; the car made the thump-thumping transition as the I-10 turned from flat road to cement bridge and then they were driving over the basin and away and Gene whined again louder. “ _Non, non, Merl-Francis, ramène-moi chez moi. Je veux aller a la maison_. _S'il vous plaît_ .”

“Hey, hey we are going home.” The car lurched forward as Merriell picked up speed and then he swore, high and scared and so unlike Merriell and Gene couldn’t see what was going on because the world pulsed unhappily around him. “Shit! Jesus, what the fuc— we are on a _bridge_ , Gene, I can’t turn around!”

Minutes passed in a blur and the bridge rose, high, the trees fell away and as they crossed above the Whiskey Bay Channel, Gene punched his breath out through his nose and slumped against his seat.

“Merriell,” he breathed.

And then Gene started to seize. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> J'ai juste besoin de rentrer à la maison - I just need to go home.  
> Ramène-moi à la maison, Merl-Francis - Take me home, Merl-Francis?  
> Non, non, Merl-Francis, ramène-moi chez moi. je veux aller a la maison. S'il vous plaît -No, No, Merl-Francis, take me home. I want to go home. Please.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter really kicked my ass and as family emergencies picked up it just made it worse. Honestly at this point, I needed to get it out before I #wipWednesday the rest of the whole goddamned fic.
> 
> I hope you guys like it and I’d love to hear from you.

The world returned to Gene in fits and chunks; he was aware sometimes of pain or unbearable heat, sometimes of someone’s hand pressed to his chest, of a seatbelt rubbing his neck raw. More and more steadily he became aware of a great moving hum, of an increasingly dark verdant murmur that pressed closer, higher, arching over roiling greys and sliding into murky, unfathomable brown.

Cool wet splashed on his cheeks and hands and the world wavered into place. He turned his face upwards, stumbling, and gave a gasp of relief which was echoed in the quiet, insistent muttering at his side. With that, it was like he tuned back in, static trembling along like an old am radio until it became Merriell’s voice, cursing and cajoling in turn.

_“Bouge ton pied droit, Gene, c'est bon. Maintenant l'autre. Bien bien_ — you got something else to stare at you fucking weed-eating Jesuite? _Bien, shh, hé c'est vrai juste monter sur le bord.”_ He continued, tone steady and Gene hummed back as he drifted onto rocking boards; let Merriel settle him down.

He knew he was propped against the side of a boat and he rolled onto his shoulder, his far hand flopping up and over the side, sighing as cool water dragged around his fingers, tugged welcomingly and soothed some burning, itching part of his brain. Merriell had quieted, pressed up against him, pinning him upright between him and the boat and Gene smiled and let himself drift again, fingers still trailing in the water. The world still faded in and out around him but this time he was conscious of Merriell’s voice and it often pulled him out of the faded, swirling landscape and gave him the presence of mind to move under his own power. His steps on the ground felt in turn like he was moving without gravity and so heavy he might sink into the mud. 

Gene let himself sink down into it, rousing again only when his feet hit wood and the sound of shifting paint chips was all that sat in place of the static that had eaten at his brain for so long now. Gene sighed in relief; curled his toes inside his sneakers and then pressed them back down, feeling solid support under his feet, listening to the paint crackle, feeling grounded. “Mer’ll.”

“Tha’s right, ol’ Snafu, same as the last seven times.” Merriell’s shoulder shifted under him and Gene gripped, convulsively. “God damm- locked. Where the keys?”

Gene made a confused noise.

“The keys for the house, Gene.”

“Dun nee’ no keys,” Gene slurred.

“What?” Merriell shifted Gene’s weight in his arms a bit, trying to reach into his pockets while keeping him propped up. Gene did his best to help, slinging his arm tighter over Merriell’s shoulder but he found himself unbalanced and his knees, already wavering, slid out a little from underneath him. “Shit, Gene, stop moving.”

“S’rry. Ain’t no k’s. Jus’ le’me open the door.”

“There are keys, Gene.” Gene didn’t like this gentle version of Merriell very much and he scowled fuzzily into Merriell’s shoulder, digging his forehead in hard in recrimination. Merriell seemed unphased by his rebuke. “Two big fuck-off keys that looked like they came out of a movie set, remember?”

“No,” Gene admitted. 

“Shit, Gene.” There was a long silence, interrupted only by the ticking of the truck’s engine turning over and the constant, rise-and-fall hum of the bayou surrounding them, muted under a steady drizzle. Then Merriell was shifting under and around him, pushing Gene up against the door and holding him there with one hand on his shoulder, digging into his pockets. Gene frowned, shifted, the jamb digging between his shoulder blades; the searing fog in his head cleared a bit more as he pressed back against the door. 

Merriell cursed and Gene murmured an apology back, sure in some part of his mind that Merriell wasn’t going to like this but just as sure that there were no keys secreted away in his pockets if only Merriell searched hard enough. He murmured another apology, patted clumsy at the sharp jut of bone under his fingers, before he slid his hand off of Merriell’s shoulder and let it hit the door. There was a soft, barely audible ‘thud’ of flesh against solid wood that was almost drowned out under the twin echoes of the two ornate, nickel-plated locks shunting open with their firm, satisfying ‘clicks’. 

Gene slid his arm up towards the doorknob, elbow bending awkwardly, but he figured if he turned then the arm anchoring him to Merriell might slip and he’d lose what balance he’d found for himself. A tension that Gene recalled pressing against his own breast bone built between them now in a way that only Gene had felt then. The weight of the air between them having nothing to do with the heat and everything to do with the way Merriell’s body tensed against his, the way Merriell’s eyes locked on the space over Gene’s shoulder and Gene’s gaze wavered between Merriell’s jaw and the hazy space somewhere at their navels. The tension rose, crested, and the door swung open easily to reveal darkness and cool, discoloured tiles and nothing more. Merriell’s hand, twisted into the worn fabric at Gene’s shoulder, tightened and then loosened and his palm pressed flat and heavy against his collarbone. 

Gene must have let out some sort of sound or the bone creaked because Merriell’s eyes darted away from the open doorway and back to Gene’s face and suddenly Merriell was breathing again, his touch gentling. 

“Fuck you, Gene.” 

“Sorry.”

“Stop saying you’re sorry, you dumbass.”

Gene bit down on his automatic response, his face scrunching up instead. He knew he looked pinched — he always did when he was swallowing down unpleasant emotions — could feel it in the too-dry creases of his face, in the lines that were just-this-side of cracking his lips like a shrunken head. Not having anything else he could say, he just reached up and patted at Merriell’s hand where it rested on his shoulder clumsily. They stood like that, Gene sagging against the door frame and Merriell leaning towards him, staring at each other because the other option was addressing the elephant of the house. Around them the rain picked up, blurring the world outside the veranda with misting drops and sound.

Finally Merriell sighed and pushed at his shoulder again before rocking back on his heels. “You conscious now?”

“Probably.” Gene surreptitiously wriggled his fingers and toes, testing. “M’knees feel like jello. S’s’my head.”

“Mm.” A cocked eyebrow and unimpressed look was all he got before Merriell was slipping back under his shoulder and propping him through the door. “S’prised your brain ain’t leaking out ya nose but then, ain’t no brain in there to melt, is there.”

Gene leaned against him extra hard in protest despite the fact that every step into the darkened house had him feeling steadier than he had since the bed-and-breakfast. He was still tired — drained like he hadn’t felt since attempting a practicum, clinic hours, and course work all at once — but the swirl of thoughts was just that: thoughts. Not fog or heat or static; just thoughts and regular, familiar old pains of a body recovering.

He never thought he’d be grateful for regular old aches the way he was right now.

Merriell paused with him in the middle of the main hall and it took Gene a moment to pull his thoughts away from checking in on his own limbs to notice that they’d stopped. Even then, it took him a solid while of staring at the side of Merriell’s nose to realize that he was debating where to go — and his glare at the kitchen very clearly stated his thoughts on that particular avenue. Although it would probably be easier to leave Gene to sprawl across the old oak bench in the kitchen until his wobbly knees could carry his own weight up the stairs, Gene didn't relish the idea and obviously Merriell didn't either.

As they wavered, Gene’s side slowly dampening where they were pressed together, there was a quiet click that echoed in the empty space around them. Across the hall from the kitchen was a pair of solid oak pocket-doors set with dark, bubbled stained glass that blocked the view of the room beyond but let some light creep into the enclosed central hall. They’d kept those doors closed once Gene had de-caulked them; the tall windows in the parlor beyond were set only two hand-spans apart along the veranda and they’d been desperate to try and keep some of the muggy July heat from invading the rest of the house. Now those doors stood slightly ajar, watery light seeping through, lapping across their feet.

Gene kept his eyes on the little line as it wavered, careful not to shift his body either towards or away from the door. Any little movement on his part would set Merriell into defensive, thoughtless motion; Gene could feel that in the tight twitching muscles of the shoulder set against his own and honestly he wasn’t up for being the cause of more panicked flights today. Instead they both stood there, shoulders pressed into each other, arms gripping tight for long enough that the wavering light stopped licking at their toes and stretched onward towards the kitchen step. Gene continued to stare at Merriell’s nose and Merriell in turn resolutely scowled at the kitchen doorway until Gene’s knees began to wobble again despite how much of his weight was being carried already. He swallowed, set to locking his knees together to keep himself upright when Merriell snorted angrily and shoved his shoulder harder into Gene’s armpit, spinning them towards the parlour.

“Jesus fuck this place.”

“Ow.” Gene replied mildly.

“Shut up.”

They had both been in the large room that took up the whole right side of the house before and at the time the room had been an empty space. The wood floor an expanse of blackened dings and scratches from the scraping of heavy furniture that had been long gone by the time Gene had claimed the house, even in the half-open office that languished at the back. The windows had stretched bare and gauntly grey-framed towards wainscotting that had been the most ornate thing left in the house and left the room feeling all the more starkly vacant because of it. 

Opening the door — Merriell irritatedly shoving and half-lifting the slightly swollen wood back into its slot — was like opening the house into a different time. The floor was still age-dark but that hardly mattered as it was covered in lush rugs that overlapped along corners and at haphazard angles that still, somehow, had the sense of intentionality. Settled into the thick pile as if they had always been there were deep-set chairs and a sofa that was really too prim to even call it that; covered in textured damask, worn velvet, or dark, creased leather they created intimate little spaces strewn around the room. Thick and round, dark golden oak tables stoutly cozied up to arms or settled between spaces, ready to bare the weight of a book or a glass, a lazily flung foot or even, Gene thought wryly and with an increasingly hysterical note, the well-worked mortar and pestle that sat pretty on the bookshelf against the room’s inner wall.

The rain-dampened sunlight that had wavered and danced along their feet out in the hallway didn’t so much illuminate the space as create corners of comfortable shade that someone could sink into since light linen curtains now softened the windows and the space beyond. It was to one of these spaces that Gene eventually moved towards, Merriell pulled in his wake this time. Gene collapsed into worn leather and then folded himself in half, head cradled in his hands, hands against his knees. 

Merriell hadn’t stopped cursing under his breath since he’d worked the doors open and he was still cursing now. He continued even as he loomed like a particularity underfed vulture in Gene’s space; even as he reached over and pressed a palm to Gene’s neck. “Fuck kind of taste does your demon house have, Gene?”

Gene laughed and that half-hysterical note to his thoughts carried wetly into his tone. “I assume the taste of a 200 year old grandmother.”

“Your gran would never.”

“Please, Merriell, don’t imply grandmere was from the 1800s. She come back to lash both our asses.”

“Then we could finally have that old lady fight you’ve been taunting me with.”

“Fuck off, Merriell.” Gene garbled into his knees.

“Fuck you, yourself, asshole.” And there was real anger in Merriell’s voice now, creeping in under the forced calm and Gene flinched from it, gentle grip or not. “Fuck you, fuck this house, fuck this bippity boppity boo shit.”

“I’m sorry, Merl-Francis.” 

“You should be! You damned well should be! This was bad enough, it giving you nightmares, pressing you to do things. You were  _ steaming _ , Eugene Roe. Sitting there, arching against your seatbelt and my arm and you steamed like you were boiling away inside.” Merriell shook Gene by the neck, his accent hiding shards of glass in roiling molasses. “And then I bring you back and here it is, making itself all pretty fo’ you like it didn’t just try to kill you and use me to get you back here! Putting parts of itself inside  _ you _ .”

Gene tried to sit up, to look at Merriell’s face maybe, but Merriell’s grip kept him curled in on himself. The most he could do was arch his shoulders and spine and press his neck more firmly against Merriell’s hand. Instead he wriggled one arm free and, with an awkward bend backwards, grasped at the material of Merriell’s jeans and pressed his fist in tight. 

Merriell pressed down once more, firmly and then his grip lightened and disappeared altogether. Gene stayed bent over for a few seconds more, breathing unsteady before he sat up and cautiously turned. He kept his own knuckles dug firmly into Merriell’s thighs.

“It’s fucked up, Gene-Baptiste and I don’t know if I want to be a part of it.”

“And if you stay, you’ll keep being part of it?”

Merriell’s lips tightened and Gene wondered if that was what Merl-Francis had looked like when he’d decided to leave Eugene Sledge without a return address or a phone number or a last waking goodbye.

At least, Gene thought, he was getting that much.

“It’ll be a week tomorrow. You could take the truck back.” Gene offered, after a moment.

Merriell wasn’t looking at him. “Sure, now you willing to be parted from it. Non. That rental’s gotta get back. I’ll take that.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Silence stretched between them once again and then Merriell reached down to pat awkwardly at Gene’s hand then pried it loose. “I’m going to go straighten up my shit. You … do whatever you need to.”

And then he left Gene alone in his brand new parlour, sinking his toes into plush carpet and breathing purposefully deep and steady.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bouge ton pied droit, Gene, c'est bon. Maintenant l'autre. Bien bien — Bien, shh, hé c'est vrai juste monter sur le bord.” 
> 
> Move your right foot, Gene, that's good. Now the other. Good, good — Good, shh, hey that's right just step up over the edge


End file.
